Halloween is a popular holiday because it encourages everyone — including healthcare workers — to embrace their creative, fun, and spooky side. According to Statista, 70% of Americans are planning on celebrating Halloween this year.
Granted, the Halloween experience is different for nurses than for many, as they ensure that patient care outcomes are upheld at all times (including holidays and other festive celebrations). However, there are still ways in which nurses can balance enjoying the widely celebrated holiday at work while ensuring that patients are still tended to with utmost care.
Tips on How to Celebrate Halloween in the Workplace, Nurse Edition
1. Dress up in Halloween-themed scrubs.
Wearing Halloween-themed scrubs, caps, and socks is a simple yet fun way to celebrate Halloween and, hopefully, bring a smile to your patients’ faces. Wearing clothing items that feature cute and spooky Halloween designs, including cobwebs, skeletons, pumpkins, witches, and ghosts, is always a hit. Just make sure that you choose safe Halloween designs that are not terrifying, so as not to scare children and older adults.
2. Don’t make any Halloween-related activity or celebration mandatory.
Understand that what’s fun for some is not fun for all, so any Halloween-themed events or activities in the healthcare facility should be voluntary. Everyone is welcome to participate in the activities, but it should not be framed as everyone is mandated to join.
Even though healthcare workers might be interested in joining the event, because of the high-stakes and critical nature of the healthcare field, chances are they’re busy tending to patients who need help or are busy doing chart work. Making the event voluntary will prevent them from feeling like they need to add it to their to-do lists, and will make them enjoy the activities that they do get to participate in schedule-permitting.
3. Halloween-ify the nursing station with colorful designs and healthy treats.
Before you put up the Christmas lights and play Christmas carols at the nurse station, it’s a great idea to spread Halloween joy by dressing up the nurses station in some fun and colorful Halloween decorations that both kids and adults will love. If many units will be decorating their nurses stations, you could set up a Halloween decorating contest and give an award to the winning team.
Nurse stations in pediatric units can also serve up healthy snacks so that kids who are missing out on trick-or-treating can still partake in the fun Halloween tradition. If the patients can’t leave their respective rooms for health reasons, nurses and other staff members can do reverse trick-or-treating by going to patients’ rooms and giving out fun treats for them to enjoy.
4. Set up fun activities for patients.
Halloween is a fun event that can help allow patients and their loved ones to embrace the spirit of joy and festivity. Some hospitals encourage the parents of patients in the NICU to create DIY Halloween costumes for their babies, including superheroes, animals, princesses, pumpkins, and monsters. Others give Halloween-themed trinkets for patients to take home.
